Paragraphs like this make me realize just how many people don't play on both PC and console, and it's disappointing.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Hot take: If the DualSense touchpad can remember 100s of gestures, this puts it on par with keyboards, if not above them.
- Thread starter zeuanimals
- Start date
Paragraphs like this make me realize just how many people don't play on both PC and console, and it's disappointing.
Nothing replaces buttons. Ask anyone who has played a game designed for controllers with touchscreen controls.
What the DS4 could and couldn't remember isn't relevant here. Any gestures on the DS4 and any gestures on the DualSense would have to be interpreted by the game - in either case all the controller would be doing would be passing the motion to the game for interpretation.
The fact that games aren't using gestures already is a sign that developers, on the whole, have little interest in incorporating this kind of input method into their control systems.
I would also suggest that the DualSense has enough inputs anyway. Aside from the dual sticks it's got an 8-directional d-pad, four face buttons, two stick buttons, four shoulder buttons, and a touchpad that can easily be usefully virtually divided into four distinct functional areas. There are few games that need more controls than that to be instantly accessible, and even in those cases it'd often possible to use one or more shoulder buttons as input toggles for other inputs.
Sheesh.
Those sound just abysmally awful - at least as bad, and possibly worse, than the Wii games that required awkward motion controls for what should have been standard inputs just because they were on the Wii.
I can't tell if you're mad or you're just inventing a really fucked up WarioWare mini game.
Exactly.
You could argue that a mouse is better than a stick for aiming (I wouldn't make that argument personally, I don't like mouse aiming) but contorting your left hand into a claw to press four keys meant for typing to awkwardly move around in 8 digital directions instead of an analog stick?
No thanks.
I can, and will.
Oh wait, you're serious.
Just because you're personally bad at using keyboards doesn't mean the rest of us are.
OP
OP
I play PC. I can't imagine ARMA 3 working on consoles without a touchpad. There's so many random inputs that are completely unnecessary and yet they're still there. If a dev wants to put an unnecessary input onto a controller, why waste a button that can be spammed? Why not put it on the touchpad which isn't supposed to be used as often?
OP
OP
Who knows? As long as devs don't implement necessary inputs for the touchpad, it's not a problem. What's it matter if you don't remember the gesture for how to pop your hood in a racing game to show off your engine? Atleast there's a possible input that you can remember if you wanna do that. Atleast the devs aren't gonna waste a button or some other shortcut for this. It's extra BS that you don't have to worry about, but it's possible if you want.
Keyboards come in all kinds of formats. Use a 60% size programmable keyboard and you barely have to move your hands to type as things like function keys, arrows etc are behind modifiers. Just because the full size keyboard is a shit layout does not mean you need to use one.
There is no argument here. Mouse allows for infinitely more precise aiming. Analog stick is better for movement though, which is why a controller with gyro aim is very nice for gaming. It's just that MS refuses to add a gyro and PS4 developers refuse to add gyro aim support for no good reason. Plenty of threads on this forum about gyro aim already.
Touchpad gestures aren't going to be all that useful. The placement of the touchpad is not ideal for using it regularly and when actually playing, most of the time you won't have time to draw gestures that are more complex than using X number of fingers to swipe up, down, left or right. I would love to see it used more, but I think it works best for cursor control rather than gestures. The main issue is its current position. Steam Controller does far better for trackpads because they are placed in intuitive positions.
??
Your non-mouse hand has instant access to like 18 keys straight away, and it's super easy to to put your pinky on shift or ctrl and lose 4 keys but still hit the other dozen. So, that's like 42 buttons without even factoring in mouse buttons.
Also mouse is more precise as an input device. Try moving a mouse pointer with a joystick for a fair comparison. It's the same with a mouse in an FPS - instead of moving a pointer to click on an icon, you're moving a crosshair to click on a head.
Because it fits in this thread:
Sony should let someone set comands to the touch pad on system level, that would be the best.
Let me choose the comand for
swipe up
swipe down
swipe left
swipe right
..........
click
.
or
.
click left
click right
Let me bind it to a button, or better let me set a real comand like
swipe up = options + R1 + R1 (for in-game character upgrade menu)
Maybe make it so that a command string has to begin with the options button, otherwise you could win a Street fighter match while swiping up and down. ;-)
should work great with a fast SSD for all i know.
of course that would have to be on per game basis
For me that is a real missed oppertunity to sell more people on the touchpad.
Sony should let someone set comands to the touch pad on system level, that would be the best.
Let me choose the comand for
swipe up
swipe down
swipe left
swipe right
..........
click
.
or
.
click left
click right
Let me bind it to a button, or better let me set a real comand like
swipe up = options + R1 + R1 (for in-game character upgrade menu)
Maybe make it so that a command string has to begin with the options button, otherwise you could win a Street fighter match while swiping up and down. ;-)
should work great with a fast SSD for all i know.
of course that would have to be on per game basis
For me that is a real missed oppertunity to sell more people on the touchpad.
OP
OP
I prefer WASD for twitch shooting, my response time is way better than tilting the left stick from one end to the other. True, I should invest in a smaller keyboard. And as I stated in the OP, keyboards are customizable and have the opportunity for macros and modifiers. I'm just talking in general. ARMA 3 has so many inputs that simply do not matter. They're still there if you wanna mess around with them but they're otherwise useless and coincidentally perfect for a touchpad. That's all I want from the touchpad, for all of the meaningless inputs that I still kinda wanna play with to be accessible on a controller.
...What?
A mouse is obviously better for aiming, are you telling me you have better control over your thumb in a 2 inch area than you do over your entire wrist and hand over possibly multiple feet? Also lmao at "contorting your hand into a claw", maybe that's why you're not good at using a keyboard for gaming.
That's why I don't because it's uncomfortable and unintuitive.
More precise doesn't necessarily mean more enjoyable.
I've tried it, yes it's easier to basically point at the target you want to hit but I find moving the crosshairs with a stick and pulling a trigger far more intuitive and enjoyable than clicking on enemies with a mouse.
OP
OP
I'm not asking anybody to replace buttons. There's already SOOOOOO many inputs on various PC games that will never be on consoles because there's simply not enough buttons to place them on. The games are still completely playable without those inputs though, but it would be nice to have those extra inputs. Great thing is, the touchpad can allow for them. It's not taking anything away, it's giving us more functionality without changing the controller's form factor.
All y'all laughing, but wait till you meet me in the gulag.
While you were wasting your time with QWERTY and Dvorak, I was mastering Graffiti.
While you were wasting your time with QWERTY and Dvorak, I was mastering Graffiti.
It's certainly more accurate and easier to win when you can click on the targets you want to kill.
But cautiously moving the crosshairs by carefully pushing an analog stick is far more engaging in my opinion.
I genuinely miss Graffiti. It was the perfect stylus input system. My handwriting is super bad and handwriting recognition never worked a damn for me, but I got so fast using Graffiti. I would honestly carry a stylus to use with my phone or something like a total nerd if it meant I could use Graffiti on it.All y'all laughing, but wait till you meet me in the gulag.
While you were wasting your time with QWERTY and Dvorak, I was mastering Graffiti.
OP
OP
Lol. I was kidding around with that one since everyone was saying they don't wanna learn gestures.
If you want to be even more engaging you could get one of those Tony Hawk skateboards and use those to aim since you apparently like to make things harder for yourself.
This is starting to sound like when people thought Kinect gestures would elevate every game.
OP
OP
Play any game on PC and look at the gamepad's inputs. You'll notice that a ton of inputs are missing but the game's still completely playable on controllers. Those extra inputs were just that, extra, unnecessary, perfect for placing on a touchpad in case someone might wanna use them. Or imagine a game with a million menus? Just give each menu its own gesture so it's up to you whether or not you wanna learn how to access menus quicker but it won't actually affect the game.
If you can't beat Taurus Demon while reenacting Madonna's Vogue video, can you really call yourself a gamer?
OP
OP
Nah, just that all of the controls that were unavailable on controllers before can now be mapped to the touchpad. I keep bringing up ARMA 3 in this thread but it's the perfect example. So many random inputs that mostly don't matter but it's still cool to have. Those inputs are perfect for a touchpad that isn't used often and may take some time to get used to as these inputs aren't necessary for moment to moment gameplay. It's less intuitive than pressing a key, but better than not having the input. Ignore the shit about it being better than keyboards, I was being facetious, but it can mean we can finally get all of these extra inputs that could never be on consoles, on a console.
Won't be better for typing, although the touchpad could potentially be decent for typing. Thanks to software being able to make a controller do so much more than their physical buttons would suggest though, I think that even a DS4 could be made to be a better option than a basic m+kb in non-fps games.
I recognise it's easier with a mouse but I prefer the tactility of a stick and trigger.
Don't worry about it, it's fine.
If you know how to touch type, then you don't have to "move your entire hand to reach certain keys" or look at the keys. And a keypress is faster than complex thumb movements. With a touchpad, you lack the definition that individual keys provide you, and the size of the touchpad prohibits you from dividing the workload as you can with individual fingers/thumbs on a keyboard. Also, the touchpad isn't comfortable to use if you also need to rely on other buttons on the controller. I do think a touchpad could work on a controller, but it needs to be positioned differently, and it needs to work well alongside the other input methods on the controller. The DualShock 4's touchpad doesn't meet those requirements, and that's why most devs just use it as a huge button.
Almost no one bothered to make use of the 4 gestures supported by the DS4, so I wouldn't hope for anything more out of the dual sense.
When I think of using a keyboard for gaming, I'm only really using like... WASD and the dozen keys around it. The controller already has those functions covered.
Man... I just don't think anyone's going to expect anyone to memorize a dozen or more gestures for game actions because I feel that nobody is going to want to have to memorize a dozen or more gestures. Yeah sure, drawing letters... right. I think the touchpad is too small for that and that's why the simple "swipe up/swipe left/tap left half" are the ones that work the best.
My hot take (maybe room temperature?): controllers are already better than keyboards for gaming. It's the mouse that's the thing. If a game was released on PS5 where the extra buttons on a keyboard would be important, it'd just support being able to plug in a USB keyboard and I think it would work better than doing gestures on that small touchpad.
Man... I just don't think anyone's going to expect anyone to memorize a dozen or more gestures for game actions because I feel that nobody is going to want to have to memorize a dozen or more gestures. Yeah sure, drawing letters... right. I think the touchpad is too small for that and that's why the simple "swipe up/swipe left/tap left half" are the ones that work the best.
My hot take (maybe room temperature?): controllers are already better than keyboards for gaming. It's the mouse that's the thing. If a game was released on PS5 where the extra buttons on a keyboard would be important, it'd just support being able to plug in a USB keyboard and I think it would work better than doing gestures on that small touchpad.
imagine if you aimed at things in real life by setting a speed and waiting for your arms to reach the target.
In real life your aim is zero order, you choose a position and point. Controllers introduce indirection by being first order movement, a complete abstraction of what you actually need to do.
User Banned (Permanent): Platform Warring & Long History of Hostility; Ban Made Permanent After Attempting to Create an Alt-Account
PC gamers have the most fragile egos.
Since everyone else in this topic is being blunt with you, I'm also going to be blunt with you: this is a shit way to construct an argument. I've made some points that I feel are relevant to the topic, and your actual response to those points is "play any game on PC".
If you want to start convincing people, you need to back up your own points. Telling me to play "any game on PC" is going to achieve the square root of fucking nothing, because amazingly I've already played on PC in my lifetime and somehow that didn't make me like your idea any better, for reasons which I had already outlined to you.
The way to back up your argument would be to give specific examples - not just to repeatedly name-check ARMA 3, but to specify some exact control options in a PC game that are missing on the console version of that game, explain why those options couldn't be mapped on a standard controller without a touchpad gesture, and further explain what specific touchpad gestures you would use to make those options available.
Until you do that, what you're suggesting here is using a poor control system to add "unnecessary" controls into games that are already "completely playable", and that's not a convincing position.
you sound pretty upset friend
oh wow no way they got banned loooooooooooooool
Last edited:
So moving a mouse is more like shooting someone in real life than pushing an analog stick.
Cool.